Blogs, Social Networks, Email Lists
A person may reveal information about themselves and their opinions (relevant for expert witnesses) in a mailing list, blog or social networking site. They may even post something about the case you are working on! Additionally, mailing lists, blogs and social networking sites can help legal professionals keep current or stay in touch with fellow professionals.
| Social Networking | Mailing Lists | Blogs |
Social Networking:
Article: Are Social Networking Sites Discoverable? By Ronald J. Levine and Susan L. Swatski-Lebson
Product Liability Law & Strategy,
November 13, 2008 (via Law.com). Also discusses whether they are admissable as evidence.
General Social Networking sites
Social networks for attorneys:
- LawLink – document sharing application (LawDocs), discussion forums and a classifieds section for job postings.
- Legal On-Ramp - discussion forums and document sharing.
- Martindale-Hubbell Connected
- Legally Minded - by the ABA. News, career and job information, bulletin boards, chat, wikis and blogs, file sharing.
- JD Diversity - for legal practitioners, academics, and students. Blogs, articles, career tips, discussion forums aimed at promoting diversity in the profession.
- HubSTREET - Networking for lawyers, accountants and bankers.
- Twitter = Microblogging – limited to 140 characters posts called "tweets".
- Follow someone’s tweets. 145 Lawyers (and Legal Professionals) to Follow on Twitter; Top 100 Twitter Feeds for Law Students
- Find someone on Twitter with Twellow. Search by name, occupation (ex. law librarian) or browse by category (ex. lawyers). Tweepsearch and Tweepz search Twitter bios. Tweepz searches by location & more.
- Searching Tweets: Search Twitter for info about people, goes back 22 days. Twingly goes back over 8 months. Tweefind (fairly new) does a relevancy search while the others search chronologically for the terms.
- Tweetbeep or Twilert to get alerts of new tweets about someone
- Easier monitoring of Twitter - Twitter Google Gadget (such as Be Twittered), on your iGoogle page
Mailing Lists:
A Listserv is a public mailing list that allows others to subscribe and send emails to the group. Mailing lists were thought to be dead once blogs started becoming popular, but that is far from the case. They are still very much in use today. Some mailing lists allow anyone to subscribe, while others require approval by the list’s owner. Lists may or may not have searchable archives on the web.
General Mailing List Finders 
Mailing Lists & Newsletters for Attorneys:
Mailing Lists:
- Findlaw Legal Minds provides legal subject matter lists and legal technology lists
- LawGuru Listtool can be used to directly subscribe to lists.
- ABA Discussion Lists
- LawMall Lists
Newsletters:
- Findlaw Newsletters - provide email case notification by court as well as legal subject newsletters.
- Law.com Newsletters- Two of the newsletters are free: daily newswire and legal blog watch. There are for-fee email alerts on other topics.
- Mondaq.com- allows you to create free customized newsletters incorporating different legal subjects. Many law firm newsletters are incorporated into the Mondaq newsletters.
- myCorporateResource.com - Database of law firm newsletters, with RSS feeds by area of law
- Newsletter Access.com - directory of e-mail lists, but you must pay to gain access.
- LLI Bulletin:U.S. Supreme Court - free email newsletter concerning current cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Blogs
Links to blog search engines and directories, both general and legal-specific.
SA 12/2008